The media focuses on doom and gloom based frequently on rampant speculation. No one “reports” anymore. Instead, they prognosticate and speculate about the future with made up gloom and doom, most of which makes no logical sense.

Source: The Market for Depressing Predictions Is Booming

The reason for the gloom and doom is due to an odd bit of psychology. Negative information always takes precedence over positive information – it is a basic survival mechanism to pay attention to bad things. The media know this.

Amid a world filled by news media fear mongering, often weeks out of date or focused solely on the most fearful interpretations, many people are overcome with anxiety.

They seek out ever more scary news as a way to validate their anxiety. 

Yes, that is the case: “Confirmation bias is the idea that we will actively seek out, remember, and favor information that confirms something we already believe.” People intentionally seek the scariest possible news stories about Covid-19. The news media is more than happy to provide scary news. I’ve read several reports that were so wrong and misleading as to be fake news – but at least they were scary! Fear is one of the most powerful motivators used in propaganda messaging too. This further persuades people to adopt the popular conventional wisdom of fear – and to denigrate those who question any aspect of it. Sharing positive news during this time is to commit a thought crime! Similarly, making an observation, asking a question or analyzing any aspect of the pandemic by one’s self is a thought crime (most of us are not “experts” and only experts are permitted to make observations and ask questions). That’s why I ended up deleting almost all of my blog posts about the pandemic.